Video: New This Week - National Geographic GeoTour

- Hello educators and welcome back to the Teacher Tips weekly series. This will be our last teacher tip for a while as we head into winter break. And this week, I wanted to share an interactive map website by National Geographic, which is a great way to have students share their travel plans for the upcoming break. The tool is MapMaker Interactive and can be accessed at mapmaker.education.nationalgeographic.com Let's go ahead and take a look at the features of this map tool and then share a few ways to use this tool in the classroom. Here in my web browser, I've already navigated to the website.

In this new series, author and educator Aaron Quigley shows you how to stay up to date with the latest educational technology and classroom management techniques. Each week, he'll introduce you to a new tip you can use to be more efficient, and increase student achievement. Aaron covers concepts like the flipped classroom, Common Core Standards, and the role of social media in education. The series also covers a variety of productivity apps, learning management systems, and other technologies, using a project-based approach that simulates the real K–12 or university classroom environment. Check back often for new tutorials, every Monday with Teacher Tips.

New This Week - National Geographic GeoTour

- Hello educators and welcome backto the Teacher Tips weekly series.This will be our last teacher tipfor a while as we head into winter break.And this week, I wanted to sharean interactive map website by National Geographic,which is a great way to have studentsshare their travel plans for the upcoming break.The tool is MapMaker Interactive and can be accessed atmapmaker.education.nationalgeographic.comLet's go ahead and take a lookat the features of this map tooland then share a few ways to use this tool in the classroom.Here in my web browser,I've already navigated to the website.

The basics of MapMaker is that you start with a map,you can then add annotationsand different layers on top of the map.To become familiar with this,let's go ahead and make someannotations of the country Ireland.To get started, let's go ahead and frame our mapa little bit better on our page.Now there's several ways that I can zoom in on Ireland.I can double click on my screenand it will automatically zoom in.I can use the plus and minus signson the left-hand side of the screen,and I can even place my cursorexactly where I want to zoomand then scroll forward to zoom into that location.

Once I've zoomed in, I can also move around the mapby clicking and dragging to reposition the map.Now the map that we're currently looking atis the National Geographic map.There's a variety of maps that we can choose fromand we can change these by clicking on theBase Maps tab in the right-hand sideof the MapMaker Interactive.Here I can choose a topo map, a street map,ocean maps and even a plain gray mapfor students to add their information on top of.I'm gonna go and do thison the National Geographic map for now.In addition to maps, we also havethe opportunity to add layers on top of the map.Layers are simply collections of informationthat can be categorized geographically.

From the Layers tab, let's go and click on"Add Layer" to take a look at a few of these.On the left-hand side there's a varietyof categories of layers that I can add,such as Food, Historical, Water,Earth Systems, even Human Populations.Let's go and click on Earth Systemsto take a look at a few of the layersthat a science teacher may choose to usewith MapMaker Interactive.For example, maybe we'd like to seethe Global Time Zones overlaid on top of our map.All I have to do is simply clickon a particular layer to add it.I can tell that it's been addedbecause its plus sign has become a negative signwith kind of this maroon background to it.

If I'd like to remove a layer,all I have to do is simply click it againand it will turn back to a green plus sign.I'm gonna re-click this Global Time Zonesso that it's added and then close outof the Layers menu by clicking the Xin the upper right-hand corner.I can now see on top of my mapI have this layer added and it actually showswhere the various time zone lines are at.Now one thing that I don't likeis that it's graying outor making the rest of my map hard to see.Well all layers give us the opportunityto change their transparency.In the right-hand side, under the Layers tab,I can see our Global Time Zones layer.

Here, using the transparency slider,I'm gonna click and holdand drag the small circle to the left,making it more transparent or easier to see through.I can still see the time zone lineon the particular map in the background,but it's allowing me to see through this layera little bit more to my map in the background.At any time you'd like to remove a layer,all you have to do is click the X in the right-hand side,and it's gonna automatically be removed.Now, in addition to zooming inand changing the map as well as adding layers to the map,we can also go through and annotate our map.For example, let's go ahead and calculatethe distance between Sligo and Dublin.

To do this, I'm gonna use something known as a polyline.When I click on the polyline,the tool's officially activatedand I can now start drawing lines on my map.I'm gonna come down to Sligo,click directly on the city dot,go down to Dublin and click again.Now notice between the two timesthat I clicked, that a line was drawn.If I'd like to, I could go aheadand click around various placesin this map and to continue this line.But because I'm only looking for these two destinations,I'm gonna go and click finish on the left-hand side.Once you click finish, MapMaker Interactive'sgonna automatically calculate the total distanceof each segment of the routethat I just drew on top of the map.

In addition to drawing polylines,I can also draw polygons several ways.One way is to select the polygon tooldirectly below the polyline tooland simply click around the map.For example, let's say that I'd liketo draw a polygon that just kinda showsthat Northern Ireland is not actually part of Ireland,but belongs to the U.K.Once I have a polygon drawn aroundthe area I'd like to draw attention to,once again I can click on the finish buttonand I can see that the polygonhas been filled in to draw attentionto this particular part of the map.Now besides drawing our own polygons,I can create a square and a circle polygonusing the specific tools on the left-hand panel.

To use the square icon, I simply click on it,come down to the area I'd like to highlight,such as Galway and Galway Bay,as well as the area that containsthe famous Cliffs of Moher.To do this, I'll simply click and dragand bring a square around the area I'd like to highlight.I'd also like to highlight on this map Corkand the area around Cork which containsthe famous Blarney Castle.To do that, I'm gonna go aheadand click and drag on my map to change its position,I'm gonna come over and selectthe circle polygon tool,and I'm gonna come down to Cork and click.Now one thing to keep in mindis that where I click is gonna be the center of the circle,so I'll put my cursor directly above Cork,I will click and drag out a circlethat covers the area I'd like to highlight.

Now besides the polylines and the polygons,we can also add images and markers to our map.Using the markers panel, we can go aheadand select things such as numbered markersto show me the order that the cities were visited in.I can also select from the markers panelvarious icons that I can place on my map.These icons are a great way to get studentsto indicate the things that they didin various locations as they travelaround for the holidays.One thing that I may want to do with studentsis to reinforce that Dublin's the capital of this country.To do that I might select a capital icon,drag it over to Dublin and simply click to add it.

Now the final way that we canannotate this map is with text.To add text, let's go and click the text icon.I can now position a text box anywhere I'd like on the map,click to place the text box,I can double click in the text box to add text,and I'm just gonna call this the Ireland Interactive.Once I've added my text, clicking away from itwill make the white background disappearand I now have text added.Now we've added a lot of information to this particular map,and we may want to change some of the locationof these polygons or polylines.There's an editing iconthat's directly below the text button,and when we turn editing on,I can now go through and click and move aroundany of the annotations that I've added on top of the map.

When it comes to the precreated polygons,if you hover in the middle of the polygon,you'll have the opportunityto move the entire polygon around.Hovering on an anchor point on the edge of a polygonwill allow you to change the size of the polygon on the map.Once you've made all the changes,and you're happy with them,let's go and click save changes.Now the final thing that we need to dois to save this map and share with our students.To save a map, let's click on savein the upper left-hand corner,click "Save As," give our map a title,description, and an email address.When you click the final save button,you'll be emailed a link that you can thensend on to your students through eithera learning management systemor even just emailed out to them.

When students click on the link,they can go in and access itand even interact with the map that you've created.This is also a great wayto have your students turn maps in.If they've created a map,all they have to do is put your email address in here,and it's gonna automatically email you a link to their map.This map tool has a lot of applicationsfor a variety of subject matters.For science teachers it's a great wayto have students create their own maps or weather reports.They can study plate tectonics,or even do some environmental planningdirectly inside of the tool.For math teachers you can calculate distance,calculate areas, you can talk aboutgrid coordinate systems and planes,all inside of this map interactive tool.

And history teachers can use thisas an opportunity to compare and contrastvarious versions of maps throughout world history.You can even add different layersand ask students to look at the different layersand think about are there any connectionsor correlations between, let's say,population and water consumption.I hope you enjoy using Map Interactiveand find your own way to make thisa great learning tool for both you and your students.Thank you for joining me here on Teacher Tips,and as we head into 2015,I wish both you and your studentsa year of success both in and out of the classroom.And keep your eyes openfor additional educational courses here on lynda.com,with new content publishing monthly.

Until then, happy teaching.

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